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| gromit |
 Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:45 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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I have Manafort as #1 most likely to be indicted. Lotta shady ish in his past. Flynn #2. Maybe both? Both were so obviously in service to foreign gov'ts, that they can be in serious trouble.
The good thing is once indictments are handed down things get interesting:
First off, the Trumpeters can no longer claim it's all a hoax. Or they will, but it'll be totally wrong and off-putting.
2nd the investigation will be way beyond the point where Trump can shut it down, and things will continue. Which means this dogs Trump for another 2+ years -- either through these prosecutions and/or further investigation.
And lastly, once Manafort or Flynn or ? are facing indictments and possible jail time, pressure builds on them to flip and work with the prosecutors, getting more inside information into the wheels of justice.
We'll have to see who is charged with what. But this tightens the screws on the Trump Admin and puts a lot of pressure on Congressional Repubs. While Manafort and Flynn seem like the type to cave if you ask me.
Nothing better than more distractions for Trump so that little gets through Congress as we ride out a stupid and pointless era. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 6:27 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 9:51 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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Great clip. "Lock 'em up," indeed.
The bit that really got me during the morning news was Trump's tweet about how the indictments proved he himself had nothing to do with the Russians, and Hillary Clinton was the one who should be investigated. He's not just in denial and desperate, he's lost his rather tenuous grasp of reality. I just hope his keepers make sure he's far away from the nuclear button. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 10:15 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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carrobin wrote: .....I just hope his keepers make sure he's far away from the nuclear button. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 9:20 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Then I have to ask, Yambu: if you had had that job, with a Trump-like president, would there have been a moment, when you received a launch order, where you were saying, "Um, maybe we should stop and think about what we're doing here for a sec..."
Maybe that question shows why I would have never qualified for the position of missile launch officer. But I do wonder. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 12:23 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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bartist wrote: Then I have to ask, Yambu: if you had had that job, with a Trump-like president, would there have been a moment, when you received a launch order, where you were saying, "Um, maybe we should stop and think about what we're doing here for a sec...". |
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That was great for you. How was it for me? |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:57 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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Maybe it's because I finished off a bottle of sparkling wine that was going tragically flat with my supper tonight while I watched the news, but I was pondering what John le Carre might have imagined about the afternoon's deadly and all-too-personal terrorist attack (I worked in that area for three years).
Moscow, 10/27:
Putin: I've called you all here, comrades, because there will be a crisis on Monday and we need a distraction for the press. I'm thinking a terrorist attack in New York City.
Chorus: Yes, great, perfect, genius.
Lone voice: But how can we set one up by Monday?
Putin: Tuesday will do--it's Halloween, and terrorists like to hit on holidays.
Chorus: Halloween? That's a thing?
Another lone voice: It's a capitalist holiday when everyone dresses in costume and children are given candy.
Chorus: [general disgusted mutters]
Putin [imagining himself with a cape and an S on his chest]: I've been told that Paul Manafort and others will be captured and revealed on Monday, which will upset our friend in the White House. So we must find someone in the area who will carry out an attack on Tuesday afternoon. He must be Muslim, living close to Manhattan, and have relatives we can reach easily in his home country, so that he won't object to a heroic death.
Lone voice: That's going to take some research.
Putin: We can handle that.
10/30:
Putin: Well, comrades, what have we got for tomorrow's project?
Lone voice: A fellow in New Jersey, from Uzbekistan.
Putin: You couldn't find anyone from the Middle East?
Voice: Not with relatives we could threaten.
Putin: He'll have to do. How reliable is he?
Another voice: The iPhone videos of his grandmother and sister convinced him. And he's been instructed about the ISIS note to leave in the truck, and what to shout before the hot-tempered New York policemen kill him.
Putin: Sounds like a plan. But what if the policemen only wound him, and take him into custody?
Another voice: He's Muslim, they'll kill him, guarantee.
Anyway, I like it (though I'll admit I made up the grandmother and sister--fill in your own ideas). And if Trump starts tweeting that Hillary was behind it all, then I'll believe it. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 12:29 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Some columnist at the Telegraph or the Guardian dubbed this the "Post Truth Era." And sometimes I wonder if it hasn't been that way for a long time, with too many people pulling strings and lying and inventing phantom accomplishments to make themselves look great.
An interesting scenario - tragically flat sparkling wine seems to be a good Muse for you.
The real tragedy, I suspect, is that all those lone nuts who find some ideological system to wrap their crazy up in, are just who they seem to be. Sad, twisted, sick in the head. And will keep doing this, with whatever devices they can work with. We are probably not going to have a ban on rental cars and trucks. Or household chemicals that make bombs. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 1:23 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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It's interesting how the "post-truth era" reflects history, and truth generally comes out, I think. We're all aware now that FDR was in a wheelchair (he'd never be elected now), but did Churchill know the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor, and decide not to tell FDR? Could Nixon have ended the Vietnam war years earlier with a conference that he decided to cancel? It seems that the busy 1960s caused the turbulence that stirred up the press; I got my journalism degree in the sixties, when Vietnam and civil rights and the Beatles were the hot topics, and newspapers like the NY Times and the Washington Post and the Herald Tribune (my favorite) woke me up to a lot of things that the hometown dailies skimmed or ignored--and curious reporters were actively uncovering things that woke up the public to some realities of politics and our place in the world. All of which made me decide that I'd be better off working in book publishing--that kind of journalism fascinated me, but I knew I wasn't up to it.
Trump managed to blame our NY senator for the terrorist, ignoring the fact that the guy was from New Jersey, and if NY had the lax gun laws of some other states, he might have had automatic weapons and killed many more people (including the cops). But at least he hasn't blamed Hillary. Yet. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 4:32 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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| Catching the news tonight, I notice that Trump is using the attack as part of his plans to cut back and tighten the immigration laws, despite the fact that the perp came to the USA in 2010. So apparently everyone in the country who moved here from another part of the world is regarded with suspicion (especially if they're Muslim, or Mexican, or God forbid, a Mexican Muslim?). Trump likes to keep things simple, always with a cleaver handy for the Gordian knots. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 9:44 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Let me see if I'm following yesterday's news. A guy was court-martialed in 2012, and in prison, for assaulting his wife and child. In 2016, a store ran a background check and found that he was qualified to be sold an assault rifle. Which he purchased, and then killed 26 people with.
If I were a violent person looking to arm myself, I would definitely go down to Texas. Their background checks seem to be of the casual variety. Laid back. Downright hospitable. Friendly-like. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 10:10 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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What gets me is that Trump, among others, is saying it's "too soon" to talk about gun regulations. But of course it wasn't too soon to talk about terrorism and immigration after the guy in NYC used a van as a weapon (and nobody mentioned how many more would have died if he'd had real guns).
Also, they're talking about all of us being safer if everyone carried a gun. These people dream of living in Wyatt Earp's golden West, where justice was a guy with a six-gun on his hip and a rifle on his saddle. Except they can upgrade to automatic weapons and take out them bad guys by the dozen. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 8:10 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Yeah, the myth remains a potent one. Ironically, many western towns in those days banned guns inside the city limits.
Apparently, Trump didn't think it was too soon, back in February, to change reporting requirements on mental illness, for the NICS database.
http://www.factcheck.org/2017/10/trump-nixed-gun-control-rule/ |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:52 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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And now for something completely different. Charlie Rose? Honestly? This is getting insane. Harvey Weinstein is a creep and probably a criminal. Tom Moore is a creep and a liar, among other things (and who's to say he didn't actually rape a teenager back then, who would be more afraid than ever to speak out now that Alabama Republicans are vilifying his accusers?). But Al Franken's creepiness happened while he was still a show-biz comic, and I try to excuse Richard Dreyfuss to some extent because (1) okay, I like him, and (2) he probably really did believe the woman appreciated his attention. On the other hand, all these guys, including Rose and Louis C.K., seem to have something deep in their reptilian bird brains that by flaunting their plumage, they're attracting the opposite sex (or the same sex, in Spacey's case).
I bring this up because I figure that a lot of males who are as surprised as I am about this sudden tsunami of sex abuse news might be uneasy about giving opinions on the subject. But these situations have been around as long as there have been powerful men and vulnerable underlings, and it's far too early to act as if anything will change because suddenly it's been acknowledged and criticized. The only way to even begin to turn it around is to build a society where there's real equality between men and women (and minorities), with a real censure when one person tries to use his position as a personal threat. And I don't know if that can ever happen, unfortunately.
Meanwhile, I want Al to stay in the Senate. We need him. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 2:24 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Quote: I bring this up because I figure that a lot of males who are as surprised as I am about this sudden tsunami of sex abuse news might be uneasy about giving opinions on the subject....
I am not well known for being uneasy about offering opinions, so here are a couple...
1. It's all about power. When power is greatly different between two parties, then I think it's okay to condemn the one who has more power and abuses it at the expense of another. And kick them out of their profession or whatever it is. Adios Moore, Weinstein, and the others who clearly fall in this category.
2. Where it's just two people on relatively level ground, and the offended party is able to freely push back and successfully tell the grabby party to back off and not do it again, then I think society doesn't have to unleash some institutional response. Rejection, accompanied by some humiliation, is usually enough, and there the punishment fits the crime. It's possible Franken might fall in this second category IF he did not repeat the tongue-kiss and fully apologizes for the stupid and rather adolescent photo AND didn't do this sort of thing to someone else who was not in a position to do what Leeann did (she told Franken at that time that she would do something pretty mean if he tried the tongue stuff again).
I'm not sure how level the playing field is in a USO troupe of actors. So the above could be be dead wrong, or there could be some gray area where Franken is kind of a jerk and at least shouldn't run again in 2020. I just don't know.
And that's a problem - not knowing - that is always inherent in Trial-by-Press. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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